Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP

VRM (Virtual Reference Monitoring) is Focusrite’s own loudspeaker & room simulator designed for headphone listening. Accurate mixing has until now, required expensive monitors and a carefully designed and treated control room. Currently, both professional music producers facing budgetary limitations and project music makers without access to such, frequently encounter mixing and "auditioning" difficulties.

VRM allows you to choose from 10 pairs of industry standard nearfield and main monitors in an acoustically treated control room. You can select 6 different listening positions within that room; vary your distance from the monitors and move from left to right to check stereo imaging. 

Engineers routinely A/B their mixes by burning CDs and taking them into untreated rooms to reference on consumer stereos. VRM eliminates this process by simulating two extra rooms; a large living room and a smaller bedroom. You can choose between a range of speakers including quality hi-fi, computer, cheap stereo and television speakers. As with the control room simulation, you can select between a number of listening positions to check stereo imaging and observe the effects of typical room modes on your mixes.

VRM uses standard headphones to reproduce the direct sound, together with a DSP system that is used to simulate specific monitoring scenarios. VRM's room models are mathematical models which provide greater flexibility in the possible combinations of loudspeakers and listening positions. The loudspeaker simulations are created using convolutions of impulse responses measured using the original loudspeakers. The accuracy of these simulations in different environments is taken care of by the impulse responses themselves and the way they are calculated and manipulated. Saffire Pro 24 DSP takes all the processing load off your computer.

The Saffire PRO 24DSP is an independently engineered technology which utilises Focusrite’s VRM Virtual Reference Monitoring (Patent applied for) to actually measure examples of the sonic impact of original loudspeaker systems upon an audio stream, so as to electronically emulate the performance of the original product studied. The result of this process is subjective and may not be perceived by a user as producing the same effects as the original products studied.

Each plug-in has a host of presets that provide a reasonable starting point, delivering suitable solutions for the chosen sound source. Having selected a preset, you can then go on to finely tune these settings.

The compressor and gate have been modeled on the Focusrite's hardware devices, using the measurement of custom optos to achieve the signature Focusrite sound. (All Focusrite optos are tuned by ear, just like in the old days of analog design, ensuring a faithful recreation of those classic vintage 1960s optical compressors.)

With the same signature as the original Focusrite EQ curves. Focusrite's R&D team used state-of-the-art numerical transform techniques to create an authentic response across the entire audible frequency spectrum for this software EQ.

The Reverb is based on classic algorithmic studio reverb designs.

Alongside DSP-powered compression and EQ for ultra-low-latency tracking and ‘comfort’ reverb, is VRM; a Virtual Reference Monitoring technology that lets you hear your mix in different environments, through different speakers and from different positions, all just using headphones.

VRM makes Saffire PRO 24 DSP the only interface capable of simulating over one hundred different monitoring scenarios through your headphones. VRM overcomes the major obstacle for mixing with headphones by giving you multiple perspectives on your mix, as if you were listening through speakers. Indeed, noise levels from mixing through speakers can make it impossible for most to mix at home, especially late at night; with VRM, you can mix anytime, anywhere. Using any pair of monitoring headphones, VRM let’s you choose your mixing environment from a living room, a bedroom studio, or a professional studio. You then simply choose where you are positioned in that room and what speakers you listen through.

Focusrite has, over the past decade, built a reputation as the market leader for high quality recording equipment, with its mic preamp technology as the cornerstone of that enviable reputation. The original mic pre, as featured in the early Focusrite Forté console, used rotary switched gain controls and high quality audio transformers. This preamp is still used by many of the industries greatest producers and is the sound of countless hit records. Today, Focusrite design equipment for a far greater audience, from professionals to amateur enthusiasts, all with varying budgets.

As with the Red and ISA ranges, the mic preamp technology found in the Platinum and Saffire ranges is designed to the highest possible standards. They uphold the same wide bandwidth philosophy featured in the original Forté console, back in 1989. All Focusrite mic pres feature custom components which have undergone an intense testing and qualification process. With the facts and figures in, Focusrite designs then have to pass the essential listening stage. Any design can measure well on the test bench but only a great design can be qualified in the studio. The FET-based design in the Saffire range is no exception and ensures the same low noise and distortion performance as earlier transformer-based designs. It delivers clarity without colouration and exhibits the signature transparency for which Focusrite have become famous.

The main additional feature on the PRO 24 DSP (from the PRO 24) is an onboard DSP chip which powers the Virtual Reference Monitoring feature, and tracking tools such as compression, limiting and comfort reverb without any strain on your computer's CPU.

It also comes with an extra headphone output on the front of the unit so two people can reference the mix using VRM. The PRO 24 DSP also has Dim and Mute switches on the front panel.

Apple Macintosh with FireWire 400 port (or 800 port with 800 to 400 adaptor)

PowerPC G4/Dual 1 GHZ or faster or any Intel-based Mac

512 MB (more recommended)

1024x768 (1280x1024 or more recommended)

Windows compatible computer with FireWire 400 port.

Pentium or AMD with 1 GHz or higher (Dual 1 GHz or better recommended)

512 MB (more recommended)

1024x768 (1280x1024 or more recommended)

We always quote 'real world' performance figures (measured to the AES17 standard). Some companies choose to quote chipset performance, which is misleading, and here's why.

• Dynamic Range (A-Weighted): 106dB

• SNR (A-weighted): -105.3dB

• Frequency Response: 20Hz - 20kHz +/- 0.1 dB

• THD+N: 0.001% (measured at 1kHz with a 20Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

• Noise: EIN > 125dB (128dB analogue to digital) (measured at 60dB of gain with 150 Ohm termination (20Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

• Maximum level (A-weighted): 8.6dBu at 1%

• Dynamic Range (A-Weighted): 106.5dB

• SNR (A-weighted): -106dB

• Frequency Response: 20Hz - 20kHz +/- 0.1dB

• THD+N (A-Weighted): < 0.001% (measured with 0dBFS input and 22Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

• Noise: -90dBu (22Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

• Maximum level (A-weighted): 16.3dBu at 1%

• Frequency Response: 20Hz - 20kHz +/- 0.1dB

• THD+N: 0.004% (measured with 0dBu input and 20Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

• Noise: -87dBu (20Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

• Dynamic Range (A-Weighted): 105dB

• SNR (A-weighted): -104.5dB

• THD+N: < 0.001% (measured with 0dBFS input and 22Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

• Maximum level (A-weighted): 16.13dBu at 0.885%

• Clock jitter < 250 picoseconds

• THD+N AMPL (A-weighted)= -107dBFS

• 2 x XLR Mic/Line Neutrik Combi-Jacks (Inputs 1-2) 

• 2 x XLR Instrument Neutrik Combi-Jacks (Instrument on inputs 1 and 2 only) 

Automatic switch of Mic / Line (inserting a jack switches from Mic to either Line or Instrument (instrument selected via the software control panel)

Line inputs 3-4 have low and high gain settings can be controlled from the Saffire MixControl software (low gain being the default)

• Stereo S/PDIF input on RCA

• 1 x 8 channel ADAT input on Optical Connector (SDPIF 3&4 set in preferences menu)

6 x TRS analogue outputs (Outputs 1-6)

2 x TRS stereo headphone output (headphone mix 1 same as outputs 3 & 4, headphone mix 2 same as outputs 5 & 6)

• Stereo S/PDIF output on RCA

• 1 x 6-pin Firewire socket

• 2 Standard 5-pin DIN MIDI connectors: In and Out

• 12V DC power input connector for use with external PSU

• 1.6kg / 3.5 lbs

• 215mm / 8.5" (W) x 45mm / 1.8" (H) x 220mm / 8.65" (D)